When it comes to food trends, the state of New York is what is known as an early adopter. It was one of the first states to enact a smoking ban. Recently, it passed a law that chain restaurants had to post calories on their menus, an idea that's already spread to places like California and Indiana.
Now Gov. David Patterson has signed an executive order banning bottled water. It's not a ban for the entire state, just for state facilities. Patterson doesn't want the government spending its money on what he said was water "no purer than tap" that causes "a host of equity and environmental problems." New York's billion-dollar budget deficit probably has something to do with it as well.
Environmental groups are taking this as a sign that bottled water's days are numbered. Food and Water Watch (home of the hit game Global Grocer) said it's thrilled about the decision. It mirrors the group's "Take Back the Tap" Campaign, which is trying to make restaurants voluntarily give up bottled water.
At the rate laws are being made in New York, soon restaurants might not have a choice.
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Sorry... misplaced a decimal point. ::sigh:: I hate it when I do that.
Actually, in terms of arsenic, drinking a quart of New York City tap water could be the same as being exposed to 300,000 hours of working with a smoker.
So again... who do you think is lying? The antismoking groups or the federal and New York health authorities?
- MJM
Using data from the Massachusetts Dept. of Health on arsenic output from cigarettes, we get a total, sidestream and mainstream of 32 nanograms. A typical nonsmoker in a well ventilated bar or restaurant will inhale roughly 1/1,000th of this amount per hour, or about three-tenths of a single nanogram per hour.
This is the amount of arsenic that you've been warned about in those "TRUTH" ads on TV where the giant rat comes staggering up out of the subway to die from it.
Want to guess how much is in New York's water? According to the federal government, New York's tap water can have up to 10 nanograms per gram, that's 10,000 nanograms per quart and still meet federal safety standards.
You would have to sit in a bar/restaurant with a smoker for 30,000 hours to get the same arsenic as in a quart of New York drinking water.
Either they're lying to us about the "deadly dangers" of wisps of smoke or they're lying to us about the safety of the water.
Which do you think? And if you think they're telling the truth about the smoke how do you explain New Yorkers not dropping dead all over the place from being exposed to 30,000 to 60,000 hours a day of smoke-arsenic in their water?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
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